~ Thoughts on stuff and things.

Category Archives: Social

I haven’t posted in a while, and this post is going to be a fairly serious one – I am not going to write about gameplay or mechanics or design today, but instead talk about a curious facet of multiplayer gaming most of us have experienced but rarely are comfortable looking directly at: the complex emotions driving the players behind the avatars.

You’ve seen it before – hell, it may have happened to you: someone loses an event or contest, they’re replaced in a leadership role, or maybe they just slip up and wipe the raid… and then, suddenly, they react, disproportionately upset. It seems irrational. It’s a clear overreaction to a simple setback.

And so, you tell them, “Hey. Don’t worry. It’s just a game. Relax. Don’t be upset over it. It’s just a game.”

Stop. Doing. That.

If you went bowling with friends, and someone got a gutter ball and suddenly burst into tears, you wouldn’t just tell them to “Shut the fuck up, Donny!” (obvious exceptions excluded) – you’d go “Holy shit, what’s wrong?” or you’d hug them or ask them to talk about it. You’d instantly realize it’s not that gutter ball that’s upsetting them – obviously it’s something far more. The gutter ball was just the catalyst, simply the last straw on a pile of other problems – and that’s a connection we can mentally make, in a split-second, when the person is right there, in tears. They are hurting, and there are clearly deeper issues at the root of it.

Somehow, in online gaming, that instant, obvious realization is muddled.

Maybe it’s because we’re all remote. We can’t physically see the tears. The pain in their voices is muffled by the static of vent, or sanitized into choppy text. Maybe it’s because our chosen games, themselves, can loom large – dramas can seem more important than they are, and part of us thinks maybe the game itself and solely the game could be the source of someone’s emotional issues. Or maybe, maybe it’s because we play games for our own distraction. We don’t want to login every day to deal with someone’s personal, real-life crisis. We just want to kill monsters and roleplay being a hero and escape.

And that’s ok – you don’t have to fix everyone’s problems. It’s absolutely fine to recognize that you don’t want to – or can’t – invest that emotional energy to help someone. Most of us who game have stuff we’re struggling with, on our own. It can be exhausting and depressing to face those things, even in other people, during our happy-escapism time. AND. THAT’S. OK.

What’s not ok, what’s harmful and painful, is minimizing the experience someone else is going through. When you are hurting, you are hurting. Telling someone that it’s not a big deal will just push them away and make them feel ashamed for being upset. I know, I know, you’re trying to be helpful – but that’s not helping. Neither is demanding them to tell you what about the game in particular is upsetting them. If the game is merely a catalyst, they aren’t going to have a logical, clear answer…and they will feel even more frustrated and ashamed for that.

So what CAN you do?

– Be insightful. Recognize that there’s almost always something else going on with this person who is upset, and the game – or the gutter ball, or the broken dish, or that stuffed animal they found cleaning their room – is merely the catalyst. Don’t minimize what they are feeling by dismissing the catalyst. More than that, recognize that people are passionate about their hobbies – and for many, gaming is a social outlet, with aspects of our real life persona tied into it. It’s a tangled mess, and for many people, it’s hard to draw a black and white distinction.

– Be constructive. Instead of asking for specific game examples, instead ask how the setbacks or negatives in game are making them feel. This can be incredibly helpful to assist them in pinpointing the root of their frustrations and painful emotions. Maybe losing contests is highlighting how they feel like they can’t win real life. Maybe a roleplay arc involving losing a loved one is poking at buried feelings they have about an incident that happened a while ago. Emotions aren’t easy, and they don’t play nice – sometimes they are insidious and sneaky and creep in corners we aren’t watching, and identifying the underlying causes can be so useful to healthily addressing them.

– Be flexible. Not everyone responds to the same things in the same way. Once, right after my boyfriend and I broke up (Heeeeey, I’m back on the market, wink wink), I was having an absolute mess of a night online – and my friends in game thought the best thing for me was to log off so I didn’t do anything rash. They were harsh, thinking I needed tough love – and that might have been a good answer, except the reason I was so upset was that I was feeling ALONE. Being told to log off, when, at the time, the internet held the only people I had to talk to…that was fairly devastating and the most wrong thing I could have heard. It only amplified my feelings of rejection and loneliness. Be flexible in how you help someone. Try to assess where they are at and what the root causes of their emotions are. What works on one person, or in one scenario, is not going to be the universally best answer.

– Be supportive. Sometimes you won’t know what to say. Often you won’t know what to say. You’re not a therapist – you’re a friend…and that’s fine. Sometimes, all you need to say is “Want to talk about it?” or “Hey, I’m here.” They might not even take you up on that offer…but trust me, they hear it. Sometimes, all someone needs to know is that there are people there for them.

In short, don’t minimize what someone is feeling – to them, when they are experiencing it, it’s incredibly powerful and painful and hard and there are often underlying causes. If you can’t help them tackle that right now, let them know that you still care, despite being unable to help. If you can help, be insightful, constructive, flexible and supportive: understand that there are almost certainly bigger root causes, address their feelings about things versus just the things themselves, be flexible in how you deal with them, and, most importantly, at the very core, be supportive.

Let people know you’re there for them. I can’t emphasize how important this can be.

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The following comment from a WI article started reminding me of some of my biggest newb moments.

Daniel said: If quest healing, also remember not to modify your attacks to the alt key! Alt+tab when questing may end in disaster.

You see, I use keybindings a lot for my healing, especially for instant cast spells. Probably a development of all the PvPing I did during my formative levelling. I soon realized that I ran out of keys to use, so I use modifiers quite often.

That’s a simple use of modifiers in a macro. You press different buttons and different things happen. You can use these quite potently…or otherwise…

I, personally, have alt set as my modifier for directing my spells to my tank. Ie, I press 1, I bubble myself. I press alt+1, I bubble the tank. Well, I was raiding on my paladin and we were in Bastion of Twilight at that REALLY nasty trash pull with all the elements, right before the Captain Planet fight.

Now, at this past point in time, I have my hands (eg of protection, salvation, etc) lined up on my F keys to keep track of them really easily (you may see where this is going), but when I try to hand of sacrifice the tank, my game crashes!

“Omg!” I growl into mumble. “Wait, sorry, ack, stupid game crashed!”

I log back in to see that everyone has wiped. Sadface. We run back and try again. Again, I attempt to hand of sacrifice the tank. Again, poof! WoW closes.

“OMG! This spell is making my game crash!!!” I log back in, righteously pissed off at Blizzard by this point, and finally one of my teammates jokes, “Geez, what are you doing? Pressing alt+f4 over and over? Lawl!”

Oh. Duh. I mumble something about bugs as I furtively move hand of sacrifice off of the F4 key.

Apparently I’m not the only one who was reminded of newbiness, as today’s WI breakfast topic is a wonderful collection of amusing raid-based failure. I highly recommend a read.

Some runs back are longer than others…

“Newb moments,” to me, are something longer-lasting than a simple blonde moment or brain fart. They are almost a sort of epiphany, moments where you discover something fundamental and profound – except in this case, that discovery is something you really should have known about.

My very first memory of a newb moment was when I initially began playing MUDs, over a dozen years ago (ugh, I feel so old saying that). I remember reading the game’s website and imagining how I could become an amazing, powerful….something. I wasn’t that clear on how it all worked. Eager to become awesome, I set off exploring.

Now, I had played other games before this. I had a Sega Genesis as a kid and even before that we had an Atari ST (it was the Cadillac of prehistoric PCs kthnx). Even better, we had internet access before the internet was even a fully-fledged thing. This meant that we got, in addition to all the important boring government DARPA defense stuff, SHAREWARE (and demo) GAMES!!!

While some of these games were amazing displays of graphics and sound like TURRICAN, some were little freeware ditties, including a range of text games: virtual trucker games, a Clue knockoff and Zork-esque adventures. The text adventures, in particular, resonated with me, and I spent many an hour trying to “get dragon” and “kill dragon” (and lots of subsequent “you have died”ing).

So, when I got older and we got ourselves a fancy new computer and super fast internet – the phone jack went STRAIGHT INTO THE COMPUTER!!! – I started looking at what games were out there on the web and found a game called Avalon. Fast-forward to my imagined ascent to greatness.

Oh boy. Telnet.

I explored the virtual world, merrily typing north, north, east, look, get dung – you know, the usual. I discovered things all over that I could pick up. I found a whole castle on top of a mountain filled with dwarves! I got lost in the caves under the castle and got killed by an orc. I dropped all of the awesome shinies I had been carrying. Le sigh. A roadblock on my path to becoming amazing!

It didn’t matter. I was enthralled. I played for hours straight, and then again the next day. And at the height of this enraptured gameplay, something happened – the newbiest newb moment of all newb moments – that changed my paradigm on games completely.

I was still caught up in my voracious exploring and questing when I wandered into a building that appeared to be a temple. The rooms had vaunted names and the text descriptions detailed columns and ornate carvings. I felt a shiver of apprehension. Was I nearly at the part where I became the ruler of the world?

I came upon a dead end. There, standing out in bright aquamarine text, was what had to be part of my ultimate quest: “Archimedes, the God of Wisdom.” Normal quest creatures weren’t named in colors that brilliant. Normal quest givers didn’t have names that illustrious. Normal quest givers didn’t hang out in a sacred temple. Exhaling slowly, I readied myself for the final task and then typed in the phrase I had learned would prompt the game’s creatures to give me quests – GREET ARCHIMEDES.

You warmly greet Archimedes, the God of Wisdom.

I waited, breath bated.

And kept waiting. Weird. The other creatures always gave me quests instantly.

GREET ARCHIMEDES.

You warmly greet Archimedes, the God of Wisdom.

Still nothing. I was getting frustrated.

GREET ARCHIMEDES

GREET ARCHIMEDES

GREET ARCHIMEDES

You warmly greet Archimedes, the God of Wisdom.

You warmly greet Archimedes, the God of Wisdom.

You warmly greet Archimedes, the God of Wisdom.

Archimedes, the God of Wisdom lets out a broad chuckle.

Archimedes, the God of Wisdom says, “Quite the persistently friendly one you are, aren’t you?”

GET QUEST FROM ARCHIMEDES

Archimedes, the God of Wisdom says, “Are you lost? Need some help on your novice quests?”

NOVICE

NOVICE commands are the province of the Ministry of Public Relations and the barony.

Ok, what did that mean?! All of a sudden this game was getting confusing.

Theresa appears before you through the black screen of a magical portal.

Whoa.

“Hi!” Theresa happily says.

Theresa says, “Lost novice here?”

Archimedes, the God of Wisdom nods emphatically.

Theresa says, “No worries. I’ll help her out.”

Theresa says, “Follow me. Just type FOLLOW THERESA.”

WHOA.

Suddenly it hit me – these were not computer creatures. THESE WERE REAL PEOPLE. There were other people playing the game with me. The world fell out beneath me. I had been completely oblivious to the vast, expansive nature of the game I was playing…oblivious to the potential of the internet itself. I was in a fantasy world inhabited not just by monsters and dragons, but also by other living, breathing people. All on my computer. The realization was astounding.

This, here, was my newb moment, when I discovered I had been overlooking an essential element of the game. In my case, I had missed the fundamental nature of what a MUD was – a multiplayer dungeon.

Once that awareness sunk in, the game was never the same.

On one hand, a whole new vista of gameplay unfolded. Player-to-player interactions are far more complex and ever-changing than scripted AI. Roleplay develops, alliances form, enemies are made. Combat is intense and politics compelling. The game develops endless playability.

Then again, there is something vital lost in that awakening. It’s like a kid realizing that (spoilers!) Santa doesn’t really exist. Yes, you see the more complex mechanics of the gameplay (or reasons for the holiday) and learn to play at a deeper level (ie be a grown up), but there is still an element of blissful ignorance that has been shed. What started as an impossibly engaging magical experience establishes itself as just a game.

Any level of competent gameplay requires this transition (which is probably a better topic for another entry, as this one is getting rather long). Sometimes, however, I look back on this first massive newb moment, and nostalgically remember what it was like to be clueless.

Ok, so, I’ve just watched Hobbit and, having read the book ,but not being a LOTR buff, the film still felt pretty darn amazing. The art, the effects, the way they went about things. WHY ISNT THERE A WOW MOVIE??? If they can do that with Hobbit, I mean come on ,the style felt so WoW-like. And the box office would be off the charts for it imo. Any idea’s why it’s still not out there?

I don’t know about the profitability of a movie. The fan base isn’t as relatively large as many think it is, for one. Assuming $8 a ticket, let’s be generous and say that everyone who has ever played WoW also manages to talk someone else into seeing the movie with them. That’s 24 million people! Actually…that’s actually not a huge number in movie ticket sales. The top 100 movies sold a much higher range: 50-200 million.

Let’s do some math, though, and guess how much money Blizzard would make. 24 million * $8 = $192 million. That sounds pretty good! But that’s just gross intake. You have to subtract production costs, advertising, etc. The Hobbit? Guesstimations put that at $300 million to make. Even if WoW went for a drastically lower budget, they’d still have to invest some decent funds to make the movie look professional. The anomaly of the incredible El Mariachi aside, most movies take a big chunk of change, with fantasy movies requiring even more. It appears that no top (or even modest) grossing fantasy movie has been made in recent years with a budget of less than $50-$100 million.

I’m ready for my close up, Mr. Ghostcrawler.

Blizzard already tagged Sam Raimi for producer – even though he’s backed out, we can approximate what style (and cost) of movie he’d make by looking back at his other recent projects. Spiderman 3 is probably an unfair example, since it’s one of the most expensive movies to be made. Ever. Legend of the Seeker, however, is more on-point: a toned-down and SFX’d up version of Raimi’s original Xena and Hercules series, the show makes do with a budget of $1.5 million an episode, which is leaning towards the higher end, especially for non-network television. The special effects, however, are clearly made-for-TV quality, and a much larger amount of money would need to be allocated for a movie. Raimi’s most recent work, Oz: The Great and Powerful, had a budget of around $200 million, a number that is becoming increasingly more average for big name fantasy flick. Extrapolating from these, it seems that Raimi’s average production budgets, as far as fantasy stuff goes, would range from solidly above average to Lord of the Rings territory…so we can conclude that Blizzard would be aiming at a fairly high bar (which is pretty well reinforced by the company itself, in my opinion. They don’t do substandard stuff).

So, basically – the movie would either have to be quite cheap to make (which doesn’t look likely) OR draw in a ton of general fans, to cover the production costs and net a large profit. Just how generic would the movie have to go to draw in non-WoW players? How much would that deviation detract from the movie? At the least, there would have to be heavy backstory exposition – or a lot of sweeping changes to lighten the plot and make it easier to follow – to catch the non-gamers up on the storyline. I’ll let you chew on that and consider how it would affect the overall movie.

This whole moment – the verge of confronting Varimathras in the Battle for Undercity – would be drastically scaled down to, “There’s a demon being demony so let’s demon slay!” And Sylvanas wouldn’t be undead. Hell, it’d probably just be all about Thrall to simplif- heeeeeey wait….

Conversely, Diablo 3 sold over 10 million copies, at (let’s round down) $50 a piece. That’s $500 million gross intake.Rounding up as much as we can (to match the insane budge of Gran Turismo 5), let’s say D3 cost $50 million to make. That’s a much larger investment to profit return.

However, it goes beyond even that – Blizzard is a video game company. Making a live action movie is entirely outside of their wheelhouse, so either a large chunk of the movie would have to be outsourced (perhaps with Blizzard just providing the story, rights and maybe some creative input), or a big investment would have to be made in regards to staffing and equipment (which, really, just is impractical unless Blizzard is planning on making other movies in the future).

In short, making a Warcraft movie would likely not be a financially wise decision for Blizzard. It might, however, be good for other reasons – such as a PR move to pull in more subscribers to the Warcraft/WoW franchise. In my opinion, it would have to pay out quite solidly in this other department to be worth the creation of an entire movie… which may have been the entire original point of the movie. Remember, the movie was first announced in 2006, at the height of vanilla and WoW’s seemingly-unstoppable rise in popularity.

At the time, creating a movie probably seemed to be an ambitious, but exciting, idea for a spin-off. Sure, the profits would only be modest at best, but it would draw even more players into this new world of MMOs. The sky probably seemed to be the limit – more and more people were discovering online gaming and the industry was growing at exponential rates. A movie would only draw even more in.

However, time passed and this growth slowed. WoW seems to have settled into the 9-12 million subscriber range, and has hovered around these numbers for several years. Furthermore, it seems the MMO market itself has saturated and reached somewhat of an equilibrium of players, staying steadily around 20 million:

A movie nowadays would lack that recruitment punch that it would have held in 2006; Blizzard would be pulling a relatively small amount of new MMO players in with it, and existing gamers probably wouldn’t try WoW out just because of the movie. A new game (Titan, cough, cough), new expansion, or revised content, on the other hand, is much cheaper to make and more likely to draw in gamers from other games, draw back straying WoW subs or draw money out of D3/Starcraft addicts in need of the new game fix.

All that being said, have you heard about Defiance? This game is intertwined with a TV show on SyFy – the game world is represented on the small screen, characters from the TV show appear in game, game events revolve around the TV plot – and promises to be a potential…err…game changer when it comes to video games. Even though it’s not really my thing (I like to test shooters, but I’m not as much a fan of playing them), I will probably keep a close eye on this just to see what develops. If it works out? Hey, maybe we will see a WoW movie someday.

I really hope so, if only to see the racial dances on the big screen. >_>

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So I’m trying to make friends in the blogging community and I signed up for the Furtive Father Winter, a special little secret Santa of online creativity!

My secret target was a writer named Nightwill whose work tends to cover roleplay and the game experience. I made her a picture featuring her main character, the Tauren emblem, and quotes from her character, taken from her website. I hope she likes it! Looking over the other presents, though, it seems that I was confused about the assignment; everyone else wrote stories and guest blog posts, so I kinda messed up there. I hope my gift is still ok

For what’s under my own virtual tree – I got an awesome email with a great guest post as my gift. So, without further ado, here is a lovely post from Jojo over at Admiring Azeroth, covering the 12 battlepets of Winter Veil 🙂

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Hey Kaliy! (and your readers).

Hope you’ve had a good festive season so far.

I’m Jojo and I write the blog Admiring Azeroth (admiring-azeroth.blogspot.co.uk). I, like yourself, don’t cover anything too specific in my blog. Rather I try to cover a bit of everything. From looking at your blog I’ve noticed that the main differences between our respective blogs is that you cover PvP, BG’s and Raids (which I don’t do) and I cover more on scenery (i.e. screenshots) and Pet Battles.

My initial idea was to do a twist on the ’12 Days of Christmas’ or something related to Pet Battles. However, I do realise that some people don’t like Pet Battles and/or have no desire to experience them. So, I checked the armory and noticed that you have collected and levelled some pets. In the end I decided to produce a mini-guide to seasonal (i.e. winter) pets that are available in-game and I was able to fit them into 12 points. I’m sure there are other pets available in-game that are wintery but these are the ones I could think of.

1. Snow Cub (Dun Morogh, Pet levels 1-2)

Found throughout Dun Morogh and one of the first and easiest pets available to capture.

2. Snowshoe Hare (Hillsbrad Foothills, Pet levels 6-7)

Found throughout the snowy region of the Hillsbrad Foothills, these hares share a similar design to other hares / rabbits.

3. Alpine Chipmunk (Winterspring, Pet levels 17-18)

These are found in a few select locations within Winterspring as well as within the Stonetalon Mountains and Mount Hyjal. Unfortunately, they are the same/similar model as other chipmunks and squirrels – not white like I’d hoped.

4. Snowy Owl (Winterspring, Pet levels 17-18)

The Snowy Owl is a season dependent pet and only appears during in-game winter. Spawn locations are throughout Winterspring.

5. Crystal Spider (Winterspring, Pet levels 17-18)

These little spiders look so fragile and suit their name well. They spawn within two small regions of Winterspring; Lake Kel’Theril and Frostwhisper Gorge.

6. Everlook Mechanicals (Winterspring, Pet levels 17-18)

Around the Goblin settlement Everlook a number of mechanicals can be found. These
mechanical pets are the Robo-Chick, Rabid Nut Varmint 5000 and the Anodized Robo
cub. These pets have a relatively unique look, with only a few additional mechanical pets
available to capture.

7. Mountain Skunk (Storm Peaks, Pet levels 22-23)

The screenshot shots my mage with my level 25 Mountain Skunk Pongy. He’s a rare and one of the first pets I levelled to 25. I think the skunks look cool but they also have a rather amusing ability, ‘Stench’, which reduces the enemy teams accuracy by emitting a green gas cloud.

8. Arctic Fox Kit (Storm Peaks, Pet levels 22-23)

The Arctic Fox Kit only spawns when it’s snowing and is required for the ‘Northrend Safari’ achievement. The Alpine Foxling (found in Kun-Lai Summit) shares the same model so if you don’t want to hang around waiting for snow and aren’t bothered about the achievement head there.

9. Tundra Penguin (Dragonblight, Pet levels 22-23)

The Tundra Penguin is the only capturable penguin in-game and I think they’re really cute with their chubby bellies and feathered crests. Two other penguins exist in-game; Pengu (whom can be bought once exalted with the Kalu’ak) and Mr Chilly (whom can no longer be gained).

10. Summit Kid (Kun-Lai Summit, Pet levels 23-25)

I love goats and this pet was a must have for me. It’s not as wintery as the other pets but the kids are found at the edge of the mountains in Kun-Lai and I really wanted to include them in my list.

11. Kun-Lai Runt (Kun-Lai Summit, Pet levels 23-25)

These little yetis are found on the snow-capped mountains of north-western Kun-Lai. They look unique, are real beasts and are great for battling.

12. Winter Veil Pets

I couldn’t really talk about winter season pets without acknowledging those gained from taking part in the Winter Veil festival. There are a number of pets so I decided to bundle them into rather than cover them individually. The available pets are the Tiny Snowman, Clockwork Rocket Bot, Winter Reindeer, Father Winters Helper (green), Winters Little Helper (red) and Lumpy. In the screenshot below I am posing as Winters Little Helper (with a little help from a PX-238 Winter Wondervolt machine) and all the pets, except Lumpy, are shown. Unfortunately I don’t have Lumpy Yet but hopefully I’ll get him before the end of the world event!

And there it is, my list of wintery companion / battle pets that you can use to fully
accessorise this winter season! Hope you’ve enjoyed my little ‘gift’ to you and I wish you all
the best with your blog etc in the future!

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WINTER IS COMING HERE! Holiday season is upon us and pretty much every game out there is cashing in with special events. Aetolia and Achaea have Celesmas. WoW has Winter Veil. Even Team Fortress 2 has a (surprisingly) somewhat-roleplayed Christmas event. But what part do holidays play in the overall game world?

Many games TRY to give a semblance of backstory to the holiday celebrations. For example, WoW does a pretty cool job of translating Halloween into the game world: the Foresaken get a giant wicker man to burn (sadly devoid of bears and bees) and the classic fairy tale archetype of a headless horseman gets a lich-themed twist, as the horseman is a reanimated paladin confused over his own state of life (though I don’t really understand why we never just…show the guy a mirror or something).

Christmas is no exception. WoW slaps some drunken dwarves and dancing gnomes on it and makes it religion-neutral: bam! You got yourself a Winter Veil. It’s one of the least complex of the WoW holidays (check out the backstory for yourself – the Harvest Festival has more going on in the lore department)…but it’s definitely one of the most FUN. Free stuff! Free stuff! More free stuff! I honestly think the popularity of this holiday inspired the Blingatron.

“Have you been naughty or nice, little girl?” “…I’m a freaking Twilight Cultist, dude. What do you think?”

But how do these holidays fit into the game world itself? Let’s look at the obvious, first. While it’s not as noticeable in WoW, many games don’t use 1:1 calendar systems, and instead have accelerated time scales. An event that matches real-life holidays will have NO correlation to the in-game calendar, and will highlight the biggest “detraction” of holiday-based events: they aren’t based in the game world. Even with attempts to pretty them up, the events are based on real world holidays, and some players find this to kill immersion.

In MUDs I’ve played, this immersion-slaying was as ubiquitous as dragon slaughter (granted, we didn’t have that many dragons; they were rare spawns) and rather vehement arguments sprung up around the holidays (kinda defeating the point of a fun event). Both sides had very valid points, to be honest. For example, for Valentine’s Day, Aetolia holds an events where players pretend to be Cupid, shooting arcane bows at each other to collect “hearts” which they could turn in for prizes. The people playing the event basically ignored most of what their character’s motivation and actions would be, and tended to just run around doing what they needed to in order to win prizes (highway ambushes, kidnapping and breaking into houses all included). The roleplayers, on the other hand, often were stuck as targets (or at least in the crossfire) for the event traffic. Chatter and shouts would often be inane. People couldn’t emote more than a few lines without someone busting in on holiday event business – and the people trying to do the events kept getting frustrated by nonparticipants getting upset at being shot, as if their characters were the ones being hit. But weren’t their characters the targets? For the roleplayers they were – for the people participating in the event, they weren’t…which was the crux of the problem.

Another example from MUDs are holiday giveaways. Certain holidays in the Iron Realms games feature a NPC named Ironbeard who will randomly visit a player and toss a giftbag at them. Inside may be gold, a potion or two, or fabulous prizes. Players soon figured out that being online increased their chances of getting a random visit, and soon nearly every player was logged in 24/7…most of them afk. Guilds would have dozens of members online, but nobody actually around to help out a newbie’s cry for help. People started getting angry at the rampant afk and some people even started attacking others, merely for being idle.

As we can see, beyond just the badly transmogged holidays themselves, reskinned events can trump normal gameplay, on a fundamental level. Many players view holiday events as “OOC” (out of character) activities, because they are based on real life holidays. And, as mentioned, games which do not have a 1:1 time scale have an even more jarring inclusion of external holidays. Even in WoW, this happens: think of battlegrounds and how drastically they change when Children’s Week rolls around. Players who don’t even PvP are in there trying to get the achievements – the big fans of PvP would be the roleplayers from my example above, irritated at the achievement hunters clogging up their gameplay. Rogues around Thanksgiving also make gripes about holidays and their constant turkeyfication.

However, holidays are a great inclusion to a game world – any developer should strive to include some types of events like these to punctuate normal gameplay. In Avalon, there were no holiday events, and their lack of presence was felt. Players would put on their own activities, and anything an admin/god did was considered a big deal. That burden for excitement should not fall on the players, however. A well planned persistent gameworld should include holidays and/or seasonal events, as these punctuated bursts of activity “outside of the norm” can really spice up play, giving players something to look forwards to and log in for.

So how to reconcile immersion with events? My thoughts:

– Base events off in-game lore. A game which values IC immersion will already have a lot of lore and backstory to find a way to base holidays off something within the game world.

– Base awards on participation. Simply logging in is fine for a “You were here!” recognition, but any sort of random giveaway should have a basis in actual player activity.

– Consider ramifications of event participation. Adding NEW things to do for the event is good. Reskinning existing content (like children’s week battlegrounds) will lead to normal gameplay being invaded by event traffic.

– Make em fun 😛

So. My thoughts for now. All that said, I love holiday events. As someone who’s travelled alot and moved to strange places and isn’t the best at making huge groups of new friends, it’s been nice to be able to log in to the games I play and have my own little version of Christmas if I can’t be at home with my family. So, in that regard, I absolutely love that games have special recognition of these special times of the year.

Let’s just make sure it doesn’t involve mobs of PvErs trying to cap all the flags in WSG, ok? Sheeeesh. >_>

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I’ve just joined the Blog Azeroth (http://www.blogazeroth.com/) community, and have decided to jump on the shared topic train. Now, Winter Veil isn’t a big holiday for me, as I’m fairly well-off goldwise, with my far-too-many crafting alts pulling in several thousand each per day. I’ve actually spent silly amounts lately buying things like Brawler Guild invites and Vial of the Sands for pals.

However, there *IS* something I want Father Winter to bring me: fresh blood. As ruthless as that sounds, it’s not REALLY that violent. Well…it kinda is. See, I want more people to HELP ME KILL THINGS. My guild was formed at the end of Cata, and we’ve been slowly recruiting in new members, but we still have to struggle to build a full raid team some nights – and our eventual goal is 25 man raiding, so we have a ways to go to get there!

Now, while I’d love for a nice box o’ guildies to just appear in my mail, it seems that the more reasonable answer is for our recruiting to keep on keeping on. Thinking about this, I’ve pinpointed some tips from my MUDding days that carry over well to general game recruitment.

Now, from MUDs, one key thing I have noticed is that there are three main types of potential new members: 1) newbies, 2) hoppers and 3) atmospherists.

Newbies is pretty self-explanatory. These members are people who are generally new to the game itself. They are looking for their first guild and home. Some guilds don’t even want to bother with this sort of player, but if you have ANY sort of casual community, these members can turn out to be amazing diamonds in the rough. They may be new to WoW, but super experienced old hands from EverQuest, or they might be someone who’s always done solo-play and wants to give raiding a try. One of our highest DPS is technically a “newbie” in that he’s NEVER raided before…but he’s supremely competent and driven to gear himself up, and it’s clear that as a player, he’s very good. Back in MUDs, the userbase was far more limited, so us Guildmasters would actually actively hunt down people like these and poach them for our guilds, as they can end up being some of your strongest members down the line. In MMOs, obviously the playerbase is much larger and it’s harder to pinpoint who’s new or potentially looking, but you’d be surprised at the number of players you can recruit just from being social in random groups. I’ve snagged at least half a dozen awesome members (who became solid raiders/RBGers or just great pals) just by questing with random people, chatting about guilds during dungeon runs, or noticing people I keep ending up in battleground queues with. Now, with all that said, I’d advise AGAINST bringing in newer players if you are a hardcore guild with little casual/non-raid activity, as this type of environment won’t be fun for newer/non level-capped players and they will feel lonely.

Someday, this troll will be a Gladiator. You never know…

Next we have hoppers. In MUDs, many times class skills are actually gated behind guild membership, so a large chunk of guild membership is based around who wants to play what class. You get a lot of new blood in your guild based around your class itself. I actually got a decent chunk of people interested in my guilds often just because I made the class LOOK AWESOME, either by going on a PvP rampage or pulling off a huge big steal (when I was a theif). In MMOs, this is obviously not the same, but there are similarities. Instead of class, think about what your guild is. Are you a social guild? PvP? If you raid, is there something that makes you stand out, like late night or weekend hours?

In my guild’s case, I realized last week that we offer a really unique opportunity for those who haven’t raided before: we DO NOT require past raid experience and we use a rotation system every hour/boss kill, to ensure that EVERYONE who shows up gets to participate. At the end of the night, the top performers stay in for final attempts against whichever boss we’re on, to ensure progression. We also run a SECOND raid with more strict requirements, over in Heart of Fear. The end result is that we are casual and newbie-friendly but also making decent progression, which is an awesome little niche! Thing is, we weren’t really playing that up until last week, when I went “Duh!” and started promoting that aspect…and we’ve gotten several new people already from that change in recruitment. Find out what type of “spin” you can put on your guild advertisement to highlight what makes you special – it will help you stand out AND ensure that new members know exactly what they are getting into…which means they will be a better fit when they join. Remember, there are a ton of generic “raiding” guilds – find what makes yours special and you’ll get people interested in trying out your flavor of it.

ALL BEARS ALL THE TIME is a perfectly legitimate guild niche.

Now, atmospherists. This is a term I use to refer to people who like to focus on the social or roleplay aspects of the game. They aren’t too pick about what the guild’s focus is, but instead are looking for a good atmosphere. Lively activity is the big draw for them. A great way to get members like this – and make no mistake, these members are super important to have, as they bolster your ranks and make gametime more fun for everyone! – is to just DO STUFF. Not only do stuff, but be vocal about what you are doing. For a roleplay guild, share logs, be that on a guild website or realm forums. In MUDs, I’d post logs ALL THE TIME of guild events, and it made our numbers swell; people saw that we had active roleplay and community and they flocked to the guild. Yes, you might get some trolls or bitter people posting in reply out of jealousy or irritation (especially if you post a bunch), but you’ll get a ton of great members, which more than outweighs the negative remarks.

Another great (and easy) way to highlight what your guild is up to is to include a photo gallery and/or news feed on your guild’s site. Set permissions to allow any visitor to see this stuff, and people can browse through and check out old events (and silly hijinks!) with the click of a button.

All events are better with leper gnomes, amirite?

You can also advertise your guild’s atmosphere just by bumping your own recruitment thread with descriptions of what you’ve been up to as a guild. “Bump” is a horridly boring reply (and technically against forum rules), but you are absolutely able to update your recruitment threads with information about what your guild’s been up to. You can also encourage other members to reply in the thread, either about their experiences or to engage in banter (all of which serve to help keep your thread updated and visible).

Holding realm events is another awesome way to meet new people for your guild. Host some old content runs, a world PvP event, or a fun contest like a transmog fashion show or a pet battle tournament. In MUDs, I’d hold quiz nights or roleplay talent shows, while in WoW you can consider something like a big Gurubashi arena brawl. All of these things get your name out there and invite others to experience what it’s like to hang out with your members!

So! Those are some ideas to boost recruitment, while also ensuring that you are getting the right TYPE of people for what your guild is. Writing this has actually helped me flesh out some ideas that were floating in the back of my mind, so I’m off to work on some more recruitment things…and here’s hoping Father Winter brings me a ton of great new members!

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I was reading this thread on the WoW forums and it reminded me of an article I wrote for IRE a few months back. Rehashing it and adding a bit…

Anyone who’s played an MMO has a sense of the vast scale of the internet. Millions of players game online, with dozens of identical servers hosting similar iterations of the same world. Standing out in this vast community is nearly impossible – sure, there are a few famous players well known among the crowd of their particular game, but for the most part, the game world is a persistent place, rather untouched by those who live in it.

But that idea is shattered by MUDs. By their very design, MUDs are much smaller realms, and part of what makes them so appealing is the level of impact individual characters can have on the game world. In IRE games, for example, players lead houses, guilds and cities, with the process to learn class skills based entirely on interaction with other residents of the game. This makes for a very rich, player-driven system – people within the game, rather than game mechanics, lay out the foundations for progression and this creates an intricate system of politics and interpersonal interactions.

To advance in your city or guild, you earn favors from the organization’s leaders and high ranking residents. Essentially every organization has set tasks you can complete, with additional perks and rewards often given for members who demonstrate that they are valuable and hard working. This setup makes for a vibrant, interactive world that draws people in – you aren’t just grinding away to get to some abstract level or earn x amount of coin; instead, you are also working to prove yourself to your organization’s leadership.

The concept unfolds in engaging ways: if you are a promising novice, it is quickly noticed. If you demonstrate aptitude for combat, you often find that you are recruited to assist with city- or guild-based conflicts. And the recognition extends both ways – those in power are known throughout the land. Guild or city leaders become household names, and their characters often find themselves in the spotlights of the land’s activity.

Beyond this, events are sometimes held where the land itself is changed….due to the result of player actions. For example, in Aetolia, a giant sea monster threatened the entire world. Not only was his emergence a result of a magical ritual cast by the Magi guild, his eventual defeat came about through the efforts of many players. In game lore, posts, scrolls and stories documented the roles various characters played in his defeat and many players have found that their characters are now part of the game’s canon mythology and ongoing story as a result of their participation in this event.

In short, to become known in a MUD is not only possible, it’s a rite of passage. The communities are smaller and more tight-knit, and players thrive on interactions. Individuals can make an impact on the world in impressive ways you rarely see in today’s MMO, be that for their leadership style, their roleplay of a certain race, or their frightening ability for combat. Fame is not only possible, it is, arguably, one of the reasons why we play our characters!

One oddly particular quirk of WoW players is looking back at “vanilla” (ie, the original) WoW with rose-tinted glasses, claiming it was better. I’m not going to get into that (very LONG) debate here, but I will bring up the idea of a server community. Vanilla WoW didn’t have the immense resources that we have today. There weren’t sites you could just google to find out about an elusive quest or the best DPS rotation. Upcoming content wasn’t datamined months before it became live. The developers themselves didn’t communicate with the players like they do now – changes were magical new things handed down by the Blizzardy gods. Sidestepping the idea of dev-player relations (which I’ll probably explore in another post), the end result is that things were just a heck of a lot more mystical and hand-wavingly mysterious….and that meant you had to rely on your fellow players a lot more to learn things and get stuff done.

Nowadays in WoW, we have automated battlegrounds and dungeons, and cross-server zone functionality, where zones will merge across servers if their current population is low. But back in vanilla, it was just you and your server, and you had to get out there and talk to people to form up groups. I absolutely agree that this antiquated system made people stand out. Every person I remember from my early WoW days was someone random I met via questing or grouping up to tackle content or even through PvPing.

But is that equivalent to the type of fame you can achieve in a MUD? I can login to a handful of MUDs right now and people I’ve never met – people who didn’t even start playing until after I quit – will send me whispers along the lines of, “Ooh, it’s you!” Granted, that sort of notoriety goes both ways (sometimes I get “*groan* It’s YOU.”), but the very fact that you can leave a legacy like that is a heady one. There is something about fame that is alluring. We are drawn to leave our mark.

In a way, I think MMOs will always have a bit of a standoffish feel to their immersion for me, until they find a way to incorporate this feeling: instead of just playing a game, I want to help shape what happens. WoW skimmed the surface of this type of gameplay with the gates of AQ event, where each server worked together to complete gruelling requirements and eventually unlock a new raid. However, the end result was the same, no matter what happened. The gates opened and, sure, a few people got special titles out of it, but it wasn’t really something the players themselves shaped. Imagine, instead, if the event had been open ended – players could choose how they respond to the crazy bug stuff. Propose a treaty, declare a war, hold a ritual, etc, all could have spun off in different directions.

Obviously the logistics of that won’t work in a huge game like WoW. There are just too many players and servers to allow for open-ended and evolving events. The closest we get is roleplay storylines on roleplay servers. However, games like the new MUD Lithmeria make me think that maybe some awesome-crazy-awesome integration of player-based direction could find its way into MMOs. In Lithmeria, for example, hardcoded mechanics exist to let players do things like found their own religions or complete unique, one-time quests. Clear mechanics for player contributions combined with random response generation keeps the process feeling organic, while not requiring constant admin oversight. It’s a rather elegant idea, and I’d love to see something like this translated to MMOs. Let the players do the creative work, with mechanics in place to both facilitate this process and channel it along certain avenues (such as city elections).

In any case, I’ve been rambling, so I’ll stop now.

So, how do you view it? Does your server have any standouts? Is your character renowned/hated/revered/loved? If you could be famous for anything in your game of choice, what would it be?